Effective use of plasma in surgery has been first demonstrated in 1960s: plasma afterglow jet of an inert gas has been applied for tissue sectioning with instant blood coagulation. Because of this, plasma-surgical devices got a long-standing name of “plasma scalpel” in the hospitals.
Significant advancement in the plasma surgery, wound healing and tissue regeneration is due to development of the “Plazon” system based on the jet of hot air plasma rapidly quenched and providing relatively high NO concentration over a long distance with significant therapeutic effect. The “Plazon” generators, which require a large power supply, are the DC arcs with different configurations of the exit channels corresponding to the different applications (blood coagulation, tissue destruction, therapeutic manipulation/stimulation). Due to the DC arcs, the energy consumption rate in the Plazon is high and the temperature of the electrodes becomes excessively high, requiring an active cooling of the electrodes. Main and common elements of the system construction are the liquid-cooled cathode, intra-electrode insert, and anode. Atmospheric air enters the manipulator through the built-in micro-compressor, passes through the plasma arc, heats up and thus accelerates, and exits through the hole in the anode of the plasma-generating module.
A device for generation of plasma stream is reported in RU 2285358 C2. This device for generation of plasma flow contains a nozzle for gas flow around a rod electrode located at the center with a sharpened tip. The plasma stream temperature exponentially decreased with the distance. The temperature is reported to be 60° C. at the output aperture, which temperature is often too hot for uses in biomedical applications. Accordingly, there is a need to create cooler plasma sources that are, e.g., suitable for use in biomedical applications.